Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas tried to distance the administration from the crimes committed by immigrants who entered the country illegally, assuring that "the individual who is responsible for a heinous criminal act is the criminal."

The words of the secretary in charge of the government's immigration policy come in the midst of the controversy over the murder of 12-year-old, Jocelyn Nungaray at the hands of two Venezuelan immigrants who entered illegally through El Paso, Texas.

Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26, and Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 21, were captured and released by border agents when they arrived to the country. Less than a month passed between Ramos' release and the murder.

The system, Mayorkas said, works well: "We screen and vet individuals when we encounter them." If they later find "derogatory information," they act accordingly.

"I don’t know what Mayorkas is smoking because it needs to be legalized," reacted an anonymous Border Patrol source in conversationwith The New York Post. "If by vetting he means fingerprinting and doing some half-a**ed background check that has access to almost nothing outside of the United States, then yeah it’s a great process."

An ICE source, speaking to the same media outlet, accused the Democratic official of knowing that background checks don't work properly and lying to the public for political purposes. "Not all checks come back completed, or verified due to potential errors, in time before a subject could be released letting a potential criminal into the country prior to being completely vetted."

‘Biden has blood on his hands’

Dan Patrick, lieutenant governor of Texas, appeared before the press these past few hours to promote a single message: the murders committed by illegal immigrants are a direct consequence of the administration's immigration policies. "It's all on Joe Biden."

"She died the most horrific experience you could imagine," he said of the murder of Nungaray, who was found near a creek in Houston. Authorities say she was strangled. They are looking into whether she was also raped.

Patrick also recalled the deaths of Rachel Morin, for which an undocumented Salvadoran immigrant was arrested, and that of Laken Riley, which resulted in the indictment of a Venezuelan illegal immigrant. For all these cases, he asserted, the president "has blood on his hands."

"All Americans should wake up, because is it your daughter, your wife, your mother next? Who is it? New York, Maryland? Any state is a border state this days"Dan Patrick, lieutenant governor of Texas.

"Do you take any responsibility for that? Do you have any blood on your hands?" he said he would ask the Democratic frontrunner if he were standing in front of him on the debate stage Thursday. "Because if I were president today, that mother of five [Rachel Morin] would be alive and so would Jocelyn Nungaray."

He also stated that while not all migrants who enter illegally are criminals, just because 2 or 3% are, this represents thousands of people.

Family calls for action at the border

"We have to have more reinforcement when it comes to letting people in, this is not OK, it’s not OK," Jocelyn Nungaray's mother Alexis claimed on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News.

Her grandfather Kelvin Alvarenga, asked that there be a reflection on "all these little angels that shouldn’t have been taken away" but were taken away because "we’re not doing what we need to do like screening these people. … It happens all over the country. We need a safer country."

"It appears the tragic rape and murder of Rachel Morin wasn’t enough to spur action," the Morin family's lawyer said, as reported by The New York Post.

"What further tragedy needs to happen before our leaders in Washington wake up and say, ‘We have a disastrous problem; let’s shut the southern border down until we figure out a better way to do this?’”

‘Pathetic’ words

Just two days ago, the White House came under fire from Republicans for ignoring in its statement on the deaths of Morin and Nungaray that their alleged perpetrators were illegal immigrants.